ODDS’N’SODS — Mine rescue remembered

In the summer of 1993, I was manning a tourist office in our village when an extremely lame man and his wife came in. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he asked, “Do you know a George Wallace who lives here in Cobden?” After assuring him I did and that I was, in fact, said person, he asked, “Do you know that you and I worked together at the Chesterville mine at Kearns (Ont.) 52 years ago?”

He had a wonderful memory and proceeded to name most of the staff, including Larry Postle, Maurice Calder, Peter McLean, Walter Bake, Val Petersen, Dick Weber, Borden Bowes and the Tough brothers. He also remembered the assayers, Ernie North and the Grojelles.

He asked, “Do you recollect the time Robinson was buried in a slide of broken muck?”

“Sure do,” I replied. “I helped dig him out.”

“Well, so did I,” said Gordon Dickson of Smiths Falls, whom I hadn’t seen nor heard of for more than half a century.

Allow me to reconstruct what happened when Robinson got buried. The driller and Robinson had set up their water leyner drill on top of a 30-ft.-high pile of broken rock. (A water leyner feeds water into the drill hole to remove cuttings while allaying dust.) Excess rock was passed through a boxhole (short raise) to an open stope below.

As the men were drilling, their footing gave way. The bar, arm and leyner fell and the machine man grabbed a drill steel projecting from the face. The helper (Robinson) disappeared. When the muckpile had reached an angle of repose, the machine man let go of the drill steel, dropped a few feet and, after a quick search for his partner, raised the alarm.

Whereas the muckpile had completely covered the boxhole, now part of the hole was exposed. Apparently, Robinson had slid down the muckpile and passed through the boxhole. Broken rock lay all around him and on top of him. A working crew was quickly assembled, loose muck was cleared well away from the top of the boxhole, and vertical excavation down the boxhole began. Every hour or so, work stopped and everyone listened intently for sounds of life. After about 12 hours of digging, voice contact was made with Robinson. After determining the extent of his injuries and his location, a 1-inch pipe was wiggled through the loose rock, a rubber hose inserted through it and cigarettes and soup were fed down to him.

After a few more hours of careful excavation, he could be seen. He was lying on the side of the cone-shaped muckpile in the stope below. His injuries, although severe, were not life-threatening and after a few months of recuperation he returned to work.

— George Wallace, 78, lives in Cobden, Ont.